Life and Times of Firefist Ace
by Madrigal-in-training
Summary: The first time Ace met Gol D. Roger, world's worst father, he was offered a chance go back in time and protect the lovable, rubber-brained idiot he'd died for. Not thinking twice, Ace accepted, ready to kick ass, right wrongs and protect his family. A growing attraction to a messy-haired, dark-eyed little girl that's supposed to be his brother was not in the plan… fem!Luffy, AceLu
1. Ghost of the Father

Life and Times of Firefist Ace

 _The first time Ace met Gol D. Roger, world's worst father, he was offered a chance go back in time and protect the lovable, rubber-brained idiot he'd died for. Not thinking twice, Ace accepted, ready to kick ass, right wrongs and protect his family. A growing attraction to a messy-haired, dark-eyed little girl that's supposed to be his brother was not in the plan… fem!Luffy, AceLu_

x

"By the Jolly Roger, this is a special kind of Hell."

The man that comment was directed to, a tall fellow with dark sideburns, a handlebar mustache and a grin that just spelled trouble, snorted. Ace ignored him as he continued to plead to whatever higher powers he had access to in this strange hellscape of white and grey and nothing else.

"Please take me away from here. I'm not even that bad a guy! Sure I was a pirate but I never attacked civilians! And I died to save my little brother. That has to count for something, doesn't it?"

"Sit down, boy. You're as impudent and disrespectful as your mother."

The words were spoken with nothing but fondness but there was a flare of light, flashfire bright and crackling ominously, at the comment. "You don't get to speak about my mother!"

The other man raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Portgas D. Rouge."

"She died because of you," Ace accused. The tall fellow closed his eyes, regret all too evident to an indifferent audience, before his face resumed normalcy.

"She died to give birth to you."

The younger man stepped back, acutely aware of his own chest being squeezed as sharply as when Akainu pulverized his heart, and his flames abruptly died out. "And the Gods punished me for my sins by bringing me here. To you."

"To your father," the other man pointed out. "Gol D. Roger. It's good to see you, Ace."

The Pirate King received a baleful look at that term of endearment. "My only father is Pops."

Ace's glare only strengthened when this was acknowledged by an accepting hum. "Whahahahahaha, you're not wrong there, boy. I owe Whitebeard his own weight in sake when I see him next."

"You'll be waiting a long time for that drink then."

"No, I'll not," Roger's tone became more gentle as his younger, near mirrored half stiffened. "I'm sorry, Ace."

There was a brief moment of silence, a stillness yet unbroken by a lifetime of son despising father, before Ace screamed. Fury, grief, regret, pain and guilt. It all poured out of him, a haunted creature in a boy's form, accompanied by flames so tall and bright, a pillar to the sun had been borne. It was a mark of how powerful Gol D. Roger truly was that he didn't move away. No, instead the man that single-handedly kicked off the Age of Piracy stepped forward, body coated in the blackened steel of willpower, as he hugged his son. It was the first embrace he'd ever given… and quite possibly the only one Ace would ever accept.

When the fire died off, tears replaced it and screams and fists and pleas. Roger stood unmoving. Eventually his son was slumped over, all of the fight having left him.

"Pops… my brothers…" Ace muttered hoarsely. "My fault. By the Buddha, this was all my fault."

His body trembled, still unable to fully contain the grief pouring out, as he raised his head. "Luffy?"

"Still alive for now. Another one of those Supernovas carried him out of the war ground but… it's not looking good."

If possible, Firefist Ace folded into himself just that little more at the announcement.

"I wanted to see you before you passed on." The maelstrom of emotions in his eyes were too difficult to interpret, though it was clear that it shook Roger to see his son. "I have a gift for you."

"I don't want it." A short laugh, bitter and hallow. "It's a little too late to play the father role, don't you think?"

"You'll want this gift," Roger stated firmly. "What do you know about the Will of D?"

"I don't need a history lesson from you, old man."

"As much as I love Rouge, I do wish you hadn't inherited her utter irrelevance for authority."

"I'm a _pirate_." Ace lifted an unimpressed brow. "You were the fucking King of _Pirates_."

"It's from your mother's side of the family," Roger steadfastly maintained. "Or Garp. I know I was desperate but maybe I should have thought twice before asking him to raise you."

Ace snorted, trying to pull himself away from the embrace. His father's arms refused to move, as unyielding as the wood from the Heavenly Adam Tree, and Ace was too tired to push any further.

"The Will of D was a trade off between mankind and the heavens. The Gods would give a certain portion of humanity the middle initial D, a promise to amplify the effects of their actions, in exchange for people of indomitable will to change the world. For better or worse, you were judged by how many lives you changed, how many people you inspired, how many _storms_ you brought forth…"

"And I brought the biggest storm in the whole damned world."

"You died," Ace said flatly. "Congratulations."

"I died," Roger agreed. "And the Gods were impressed by how many people had their lives changed by only a few words from my mouth. They knew I had a will worth betting on and they offered me a chance to go back. A chance I never used."

"Why not?"

"I can't give you One Piece or the title of Pirate King. My crew is disbanded and you don't want my name. I couldn't even be the father that you deserved to have growing up," the Pirate King explained. "So… this is my gift to you. My only son, the child that Rouge loved more than anything in the world, even life itself. I want you to use the gift."

Ace stared at the older pirate, the man whose face he saw almost every day when he looked into a mirror, a face he utterly despised and felt a sliver of hope. "Go back?"

"It won't be the exact same world," Roger warned. "Changing time has ripple effects. A butterfly beat here, another push there and the world could be a very different place. You won't even remember that you're a reincarnation, at least not till you use haki for the first time."

"So not until I'm a pirate?"

"You didn't know you had haki until you were a grown man that exercised it consciously. I'd be damned insulted if any son of mine didn't use it at least once as a child though."

"Not your son," was the reflexive reply. "...I can save Pops? And my brothers? And Luffy?"

"You can try. I'd recommend not turning back to fight a Marine Admiral after months of captivity and torture but it's up to you, really."

Ace winced. It was a stupid decision, he knew, but damn, could his father be an ass.

"I accept." There wasn't any thinking over this really. He was a Whitebeard Pirate. He had a duty to save his crewmates. He was a big brother. He had a responsibility to wring Luffy's scrawny little rubber neck for being stupid enough to follow Ace into danger. What a reckless, goddamn fool.

First rule of older brotherhood: Do as I say, not as I do.

"Then I hope it'll be a long time till I see you again, Ace." Roger finally released him and stepped back, a small, wistful smile on his face. "Give your mother a smile for me alright?"

"I will. Thank you." A bright silver light erupted around Ace's feet, quickly travelling upwards and covering him in what felt like a cool mist, as he desperately tried to catch Roger's eye. Edward Newgate would always be Pops to him but this… "Dad."

A heartbeat later and Portgas D. 'Firefist' Ace disappeared.

Another few moments and a wriggling form with pinkish pale skin and tufts of raven black hair was being placed in an exhausted woman's arms. Looking up, as he felt wisps of memory sliding past his grip, Ace mustered all of his energy as a newborn and gave his mother an absolutely dazzling smile. Then he closed his eyes, not knowing that action startled the woman into exalted tears. That the midwife, Rouge's best friend and an inexperienced young woman who had snuck out of her home to assist in the secret birth, had to spend several minutes more comforting the woman. That the best friend would one day meet a man deeply intense and passionate and, having seen her friend's happiness firsthand, desire a child of her own. That the two young lovers would make an earlier attempt at conceiving one. That a different sperm would meet a different egg and a different child, still a descendant of D but lacking one vital aspect of another could-be life, was born.

It was definitely Ace's fault. He just couldn't figure out how.

x

Portgas D. Ace came into his own shortly after his eighth birthday. There was snow on the ground, not the pale winterland of the forest, but the grey, mushy stuff that seeped into your boots and turned your toes into icicles like in Grey Terminal. They were in Grey Terminal now, Ace and another boy, with curly blonde hair and a gap-toothed grin, fighting against half a dozen members of a local gang. Ace had just bashed one of the adult men firmly over the head, his outrageous strength knocking the lowlife out in one hit, before he unconsciously used Observation Haki.

Specifically his body registered another thug aiming a hit on Sabo, something that by all accounts shouldn't be visible to him, since the blonde was fighting at his _back_. Not missing a beat, Ace turned on one heel, lifted his metal pipe up and near cracked the man's skull in half. Luckily, he was the last member left and went down without a fuss. Unluckily, a sea train's worth of memories smashed into him at breakneck speed and Ace promptly went down.

 _Garp-Corvo-Sabo-Roger-Pops-Whitebeard-Marco-Thatch-Marineford-Akainu-Luffy-Luffy-Luffy-_

"Oh fuck me sideways with a Sea King," Ace moaned, holding onto his throbbing skull. This felt worse than the one and only time he was stupid enough to challenge a regenerative phoenix to a drinking contest. "Marco, you bastard, I would trade my soul for your powers right now."

If Marco had powers right now. Did Ace even know when his brother ate that Mythical Zoan fruit?

"Ace?" Another brother's voice, painfully familiar and welcome after so many years of loss, numbed his ears. He looked to see Sabo's pretty boy blue eyes turned worryingly to his direction. "Are you okay?"

"Never better," the once-and-future pirate legend croaked. He threw himself forward, grabbing Sabo in a tight embrace and refusing to let him go, even with the ineffectual flailing. "I'm so glad you're alive, Sabo."

"Of course I'm alive!" A sharp rap of the blonde's pipe didn't do much to remove Ace but knowing that they were out in the open, in Grey Terminal no less, did. "Did you get a concussion or something?"

"What's the date?" Ace asked, instead of the more pertinent, ' _Have we met our other brother yet?_ '

Sabo ignored him. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three. I don't have a concussion," Ace rolled his eyes, trying to disguise the mistiness to them. He held tightly onto Sabo's arm regardless.

"January 15th," Sabo reported suspiciously.

"Two weeks after my birthday then," the dark-haired boy looked the blonde over speculatively. He had met Luffy in August of his ninth year. Sabo looked roughly the appropriate age but it wasn't summer yet. "Year?"

Sabo looked astonished. And indignant. "You didn't tell me your birthday passed!"

"Well, it did. Now what year is it?" Ace asked impatiently. At the answer given, he made a few quick calculations. Luffy was five years old now… he hadn't even met Shanks yet. So he was nowhere near ready to meet Luffy. "Hey, come and live with me."

"What?" Sabo still looked at him like he was trying to find a socially acceptable way to check his head.

"Come live with me." _So I don't have to be alone._

"Travelling to Grey Terminal all day is a bother." _I'm going to worry about you here._

"You'll be able to handle the bandits." _You'll like them more than your own family._

"I don't mind." _I missed you._

"Are you sure?" Sabo's worry was melding over to shock… and longing. "I don't want to be a bother."

"You're never a bother," Ace replied firmly. ' _I'm sorry that it took Bluejam and his men to realize what a dangerous situation I left you in. We rob from gangs everyday and then I leave to the safety of Mt. Corvo and you stay here, with people as likely to stab you in the back and strip your corpse as offer you a smile.'_

Sabo looked away. "Guess you need someone to keep an eye on that concussion of yours."

"That's the spirit!" Ace cheered. "Now come on, let's see if these thugs have any loose change in their pockets."

Every little bit was welcome when you had gone from one of the wealthiest commanders of the most prestigious pirate crew around (it helped when the traditional pirate vices of whores and sake didn't appeal to you) to a scrappy bastard without a beli to his name. There was their pirate fund but Ace couldn't remember how much that contained at this point, beyond the certainty that it was nowhere near the tens of millions he had stashed around the New World before.

They collected everything of worth they found on the men, including a pair of semi-nice fake leather loafers that Mogra would like and a pocket knife for Dogra, before fleeing the scene. Ace led a mildly freaked out Sabo on a small detour to a nearby spring that attracted animal life and took down a mid-sized crocodile. Curly Dadan would like the meat and Pochi could feast on the bone marrow afterward. Ace knew that his considerate actions would freak the bandits out- terribly so, even- but with the added benefit of hindsight, he felt they deserved some courtesy. After all, Ace had been a goddamn terror to raise and Sabo and Luffy wouldn't be much better.

In retrospect, Curly Dadan must have liked them, at least a little. Anyone else in her situation would have chosen prison over having to raise Ace and his brothers.

"Are we going to use these to bribe them into accepting me?" Sabo asked nervously.

"Nah, they would need way bigger bribes to accept a second kid. We're telling them that you're staying and if they say otherwise, they'll have to deal with me."

Sabo very wisely did not ask why a group of hardened criminals would fear an eight-year-old boy. Though it may have been the dangerous gleam in his eyes, when Ace tapped his metal pipe against his hand. Either way, Ace couldn't help the small, irrepressible smile that took his face when he saw the oversized wooden shack of the mountain bandits. He had made so many wonderful memories here with Luffy and Sabo… and yeah, the Dadan Family had been in there somewhere.

Ace lifted a hand and knocked very politely on the door. It was slammed open and a man amongst men, with wild curly orange hair and a cigar on her lips, stood in front. Her eyes bugged out when she saw the two little boys there.

"A-Ace?" He responded to the shocked stutter- were manners that strange on him?- with a charming grin. It was one guaranteed to get either a flustered blush or a fondly indulgent smile, depending on the lady in question. Dadan simply stepped back two paces.

"Hello Dadan," Firefist Ace barrelled on. "I brought you a gift."

He gestured behind him to the massive, four meters long from tail to snout, crocodile he'd dragged here and left on the lawn. "How are you today?"

"Do you have a concussion?" The woman bluntly asked.

Under his breath, Sabo muttered. "Knew it."

Not looking away or losing his grin, Ace reached out his arm and jabbed the pipe into the soft spot between Sabo's armpit and ribs. His brother made a soft wheeze and the dark-haired boy inwardly treasured the sound. It had been so long since he had heard Sabo's over dramatic reaction to pain.

"This is Sabo. He's going to be living with us now." He couldn't use Conqueror's Haki or Armament or Observation- he had tried- but there was a presence that simply exuded from the boy. The authority he had exercised as a Commander for Pops and a Captain for the Spade Pirates had changed him. "These are some gifts for Mogra and Dogra. The shoes are for Mogra, the pocketknife is for Dogra."

The woman gaped at him. Behind her back, he could see the two bandits named crowding around, also looking like they'd never seen Ace before in their lives. The dark-haired boy offered a polite bow. "I know it's a bit belated but I want to thank you for raising me all these years. I truly appreciate it."

That triggered a reaction. Lips trembling and obviously trying not to cry, Dadan snarled at him. "JUST GO UPSTAIRS AND DON'T MAKE ANY TROUBLE, YOU BRAT!"

He smiled back brightly. "Yes, ma'am!"

"DON'T CALL ME MA'AM. I'M A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY, YOU KNOW!"

A few hours later, as Ace and Sabo spread out their bedrolls, the blonde shook his head consideringly. "This is… different."

"Good different or bad different?"

"I don't know." Even in the darkness, he was sure Sabo would be shrugging. "It's different. But… I think it's the good kind. Sleep on your side, Ace. It'll help with your concussion."

"That's for pregnant women, idiot. And I don't have a concussion."

x

The next day, Ace woke up well before the first morning light, when the world outside was still shrouded in darkness. He had given the matter some thought. Should he approach Luffy now or wait until Garp dropped him off in a little less than nineteen months? He still hadn't come to a decision but if there was one thing he knew, it was that Ace desperately wanted to see his baby brother.

He was also strangely grateful that Thatch's death had taught him to muffle his nightmare screams into a pillow. The memory of Akainu's magma-covered fist coming down on Luffy's wide black eyes would never cease to haunt him. He hadn't thought he could ever hate a man more than Blackbeard but the sadistic and merciless Vice-Admiral proved him wrong.

Ace dressed quietly and efficiently in the dark, taking a moment to gurgle water through his mouth while inwardly despairing over the state of his toothbrush. He would have to replace that soon. And get a new futon while he was at it. It wouldn't beat his commander's quarters but anything was better than the scratchy, rag-thin one he had now.

"Sabo," the boy whispered, leaning down to where his brother was smothered under three blankets, one his own. "Sabo. I'm going out now. I'll be back with breakfast."

Unintelligible grumbling met his ears. Drool slipped out of the noble boy's mouth.

Exercising a restraint he hadn't developed until he set out to sea, Ace slipped out the door and headed over to the closest spring. He wanted to vent some of his lingering fury from the Akainu nightmare. Luffy had always been a sensitive kid, oddly enough for someone as selfish as he was, and he would mistake any negative feeling Ace had as directed to him.

Two juvenile tigers and a particularly grizzly bear served as catharsis for him. It wasn't until he was winding down from the fight that Ace even noticed the cold getting to him. Ugh, he had forgotten how unpleasant it all was. It would be years until he could get his hands on the Mera Mera no Mi again.

' _At least I know no one else is likely to find it,'_ he consoled himself. The fiery Logia fruit had been an unbelievable stroke of luck, right at the bottom of an old mountain trail that he had accidentally wandered through. His sense of direction was quite as bad as Luffy's swordsman but it wasn't anything to write home about either.

The path to Foosha Village was a familiar one and when he reached the outskirts of the homes, tidy, well-built, all built the same as the last, dawn was starting to creep up. Most of the villagers were asleep at the moment but the few awake, mostly shopkeepers and farmers heading out to work, looked disapprovingly at the unfamiliar boy. Ace ignored them and headed to the only public drinking establishment in this small town: Partys Bar. It was closed.

' _What? Why isn't Makino here?'_ The green-haired woman opened the bar at the first crack of dawn. She should be in there now, polishing tables and checking the inventory, while Luffy sat in a corner stool and drank his favorite orange juice. ' _And if Makino isn't here, then where's Luffy?'_

Before panic could set in, Ace's mind offered a reasonable answer. Makino had mentioned once that she got up earlier to open the bar since her house felt empty without Luffy around. Luffy hadn't been around since he had started living with Ace at Mt. Columbo. But before that, he had lived in Garp's house in the village, with Makino moving in to take care of him when the old man wasn't around. If she wasn't here, then Makino and by association, Luffy, would be at Garp's place.

Where did Garp live exactly?

Well, considering his adoptive grandfather's main traits were destructive and loud, Ace would bet on a house at the outskirts of the village. Anything else would have had him hunted down and strung up by a mob of villagers long before now. There would have to be a private place for him to train when he was home, near the sea or the forest. Probably a home bigger than average considering the salary Garp would make as a Vice Admiral, supplemented by his outrageous prize money from taking down big-name pirates.

' _And a house that wouldn't be like anyone else's,_ ' Ace concluded fondly, after a few minutes of jogging around the village. At the edge of the forest, just a few meters away from a rocky path leading down to shore, was a two-story house painted an eye-searing blue. The gaudy effect was counteracted somewhat by the white shutters and roof tiles, as well as the neatly grown vegetable bed (Makino's work), carefully trimmed fruit trees (Makino's work) and well-kept mailbox (definitely Makino's work).

He carefully let himself in through the fence, oiled and silent, considering Makino's attention to detail, and walked up to the door. It was a sunshine yellow that suited the cheerful nature of its residents. There wasn't a doorbell present, so Ace knocked. He could have peered through the windows or waited quietly until they left for the bar but he had a sudden desire to hear Luffy's voice. See that devil-may-care grin and marvel over those expressive eyes and punch him for his future self's actions.

' _This time I'll beat the stupid straight out of him_ ,' Ace promised himself fervently.

His perfectly reasonable plan came to an abrupt halt when the door opened. There was a girl standing there, with messy raven hair framing a pale, round-cheeked face and dark grey eyes. The hat was missing and so were the short-sleeved t-shirts and jean shorts, replaced by a pinkish-white dress of all things, but she was undeniably familiar. And wrong. So very, very wrong.

"Who are you?"

"Monkey D. Lucillia."

x


	2. Monkey D Lucillia

Chapter Two

"Monkey D… Lucillia?"

Ace stared at her. Then he looked over her left shoulder. Then her right. There was no loudmouthed boy in a straw hat popping up behind her.

"Grandchild of Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp?"

"Yes." The girl's ink-toned eyes were filled with suspicion now. "Who's asking? He didn't break anything of yours, did he?"

"Uh, no," Ace laughed it off, nervously. "Hey, you don't happen to have a brother by any chance, do you?"

"Not that I know of," Lucillia answered bluntly. "Is there anything that you need?"

' _Yes! I_ need _an explanation for why you've undergone an immediate gender reclassification!'_ The boy that had once been the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Armada managed an awkward smile. "I wanted to speak to the old man. Is he here?"

"Sorry, Gramps is off on a Marine mission," Lucillia shrugged. "I don't think he'll be back in another few months. Is there anything urgent that you'd like me to pass on?"

From the house, the two kids heard a female voice calling out. The freckled boy was interrupted from his internal panic attack- _what did he do?! He was just reborn yesterday! How could Luffy have been changed into a girl?_ \- by footsteps approaching and a thankfully non-regendered head poking out. The dark green hair and friendly smile marked the woman as the closest thing he'd had to a mother figure last time around.

"Makino-san!" Ace blurted out. ' _Thank the Gods, you're still a woman!'_

"Hello there!" The owner of Partys Bar chirped, smiling kindly at him. "I don't think we've ever met before but it seems that you know my name. May I know yours?"

"Ah, I heard it from one of the regulars at your bar." He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "I'm Portgas D. Ace."

"Ace?" The woman's brow furrowed, as though recalling something of great import, before her eyes widened. "Oh! You're the boy Garp brought back all those years ago."

"Yes, ma'am." The boy noted that Makino, unlike Dadan, didn't protest the designation.

"Gramps brought you here?" Ink-toned turned to bemusement. "He's never mentioned you before."

"Yeah, well he talks about _you_ all the time," Ace muttered, a hint of his old bitterness leaking into his tone. It had been true last time around. The shitty old man loved to boast about his _real_ grandson.

"Everything he said is a lie," the girl promptly announced. She narrowed her eyes at him. "He didn't order you to become a Marine did he?"

"Yes…" Ace eyed her warily. Last time around, Luffy's distaste for the Marines hadn't yet begun until Shanks introduced him to the wonders of piracy. Sabo's death had only cemented their decisions to never join the Marines nor do anything the least bit beneficial for the World Government.

"I see." Lucillia nodded, as though having come to an important decision. "You have pretty freckles but I'm still not going to marry you."

Then she slammed the door in his face.

' _What the hell just happened?_ ' The cheerful sunshine yellow of the door seemed to mock him now.

A minute later, the door was opened again by an apologetic Makino, Lucillia nowhere in sight.

"I'm sorry about that. Would you like to come inside and have some breakfast?"

' _Honestly, the only thing I want to do is track down another tiger and beat it until it's all black stripes,_ ' Ace thought. "Sure, I'd love to."

The Monkey family kitchen was just as eccentric and warm as they were. The walls were painted buttery yellow, the tiles a soft sea blue and the table and chairs made of honey oak. There was a massive counter the perfect size for cutting up a juvenile Sea King, as well as a set of steel knives so sharp and shiny that Vista would be proud to own them. Pictures of faraway islands- Drum Island, Centaurea, Alubarna, Water 7, Merveille- dotted the walls along with childish drawings of them. A giant stainless steel fridge dominated one wall entirely. The hum of the fan in the ceiling and the open windows helped alleviate the morning heat.

' _It's been years now. I'm way too old to be feeling jealous of this.'_ It had taken years for Ace to accept that Gramps didn't have much of a choice on where he could be raised. The freckled boy was the spitting image of _that man_ ; it would take only one member of the old generation of either Pirates or Marines, to have the entire island he was on suffer through a Buster Call. He had to be known to as few people as humanly possible, and Ace understood that. He wasn't even upset that Luffy, whose lineage was almost as dangerous in its own way, got to be raised by Makino is a house like this. He _wanted_ Luffy to have that childhood. He just wanted himself to have it too.

' _Life isn't fair,'_ he told himself briskly, accepting a blue plate piled high with a stack of pancakes, half a dozen pieces of toast and four eggs. ' _At least there's one benefit to being the Pirate King's son._ '

He was here. Portgas D. Ace had died but the Pirate King gave him a chance to come back.

"You have Lucy's appetite," Makino commented, sipping on her cup of tea. Ace had been offered a large glass of milk. "She's a sweet girl most of the time. I do apologize for her slamming the door."

"Why did she even do that?" Ace demanded, through a mouth of bread. He grabbed his milk and quickly swallowed it down. "I mean, why would she think that I wanted to marry her?"

Remembering his sister's violent reactions when anyone rudely rejected them, he added, "Not that there's anything wrong with her. But I'm eight."

"Lucy's five and she doesn't want to get married either," Makino said, laughing. "Believe it or not, this is because of Garp."

"I believe you." The Gods only knew what kind of crazy ideas that old man could come up with.

"Ah, Garp means well. He wants his granddaughter to be happy and healthy and hoped that she would pick a safe, civilian career."

Ace nodded. This meshed with the old man's priorities last time around too. Only Luffy had wanted a life of adventure as a pirate instead.

"Lucy is a restless soul though and I think he realized that she would head out to sea eventually."

"He didn't try to press her into the Marines?" Ace interrupted, flushing at her admonishing look. "Sorry, Makino-san."

"It's alright." The woman waved it off. "Life as a Marine is pretty dangerous too. You have to sail into treacherous waters and battle pirates and I don't think Garp wanted that for her. He tried to suggest that Luffy _marry_ a Marine officer instead, since couples are often stationed at different bases. She would be able to see a little more of the world and it would relatively more safe than being a Marine."

"So I guess that she didn't take that well?" Ace snickered. Even with the gender change, the Luffy he knew _hated_ being ordered around. And had absolutely no interest in romance whatsoever. Either that, or he was secretly sailing for the other team, since Pirate Empress Boa Hancock was drop-dead gorgeous in the most literal sense of the word.

"She did not," Makino agreed. "Lucy wouldn't speak to him for the rest of his visit. She only thawed as he was about to leave, and hugged him goodbye, while declaring she would never marry a Marine."

"Would you mind telling her that I'm not some kind of husband candidate Garp picked to bother her?" Ace polished off the rest of his meal. Then he gave Makino his most charming smile, which, again, worked much better on her than it did on Dadan. "I'd like to talk to Lucillia again, if that's okay? I don't really have a lot of friends my own age."

Technically speaking, Ace considered his brothers to all be his friends but, with the exception of Sabo, none of them knew he existed. Befriending Luf- Lucillia would bring his friend count up to two.

"Of course! I think that would be a wonderful idea!"

Makino was a very polite hostess and ushered him out the door with no less than four apples and a bag of watermelon slices to eat on his journey home. Ace politely waved back to her, and to the dark-haired girl he could see peeking out through red curtains on the second floor, and then walked back. There was a nice, sturdy tree branch that he snapped off the closest tree a few meters in the forest and then a half dozen more animals that felt the brunt of his conflicted emotions.

He'd accidentally turned his baby brother into a girl. This was… problematic, if only because sharing sake cups to become brothers didn't work if Luffy was a _girl_. Ace would have to change the ceremony to family or siblings or something, even though it absolutely sounded inferior to the one before. Maybe he could track down Ivankov too and give Luffy the option to become a boy again? If nothing else, it would lessen his guilt for emasculating Luffy in the worst way possible. He'd committed the ultimate sin in the guy code- cutting off another man's dick- and his brother didn't even know it!

' _How am I supposed to be a brother to a girl anyway?_ ' Ace wondered. ' _What do girls even like?'_

His birthday gifts to Luffy had always been meat of some sort. Lucillia had an appetite like her male counterpart; couldn't he just continue giving her meat? It would have been nice if Thatch were here to advise him. His brother had always had a knack for charming women. Ace mostly just stripped off his shirt but he didn't think Lucillia would be as impressed with that as other girls were.

' _Eh, I'll think about it later,'_ Ace dismissed the thought. ' _Girl or boy, Luffy's still Luffy. Loves food, hates orders, confuses the hell out of everyone around him. I'll train Luffy- Lucillia-_ Lu _, I'll train Lu up to be the strongest rookie pirate in the seas. I'll save Sabo, Thatch, Whitebeard and all the rest of my brothers. I'll drive a fire-coated fist through Akainu's chest and I'll burn Blackbeard alive.'_

Firefist Ace had travelled back in time for a reason and by the Gods, he _would_ accomplish his goals.

This was mostly the contents of Ace's self-pep talk, even as he oscillated between optimism and depression on the loss of a baby brother. The mountain bandits had some good eating ahead of them for the next few weeks. Eventually, after tying five or six carcasses together by the tails and leaving the other half of his hunts behind, Ace managed to trudge his catch back to Mt. Corvo. The afternoon sun was already past its zenith by then and Ace was starving.

Mt. Corvo itself was in a bit of a tizzy.

"Ace!" Dogra was the first to notice him, running over and then nearly tripping on his feet when he saw the animals. "Where were you?! We couldn't find you anywhere!"

"I was out visiting someone." The freckled boy grunted, dropping the beasts down. "Here, these are for you. Keep two of the tigers free for Sabo and me."

Then he trudged through the door, up the stairs, ignoring Dadan's half-concerned shout of "BRAT!" and dropped face-down on his bed roll. There was a small stampede as all of the other residents of the house circled around him.

"Dammit, Ace, would it kill you to write a note? Did you know how worried everyone was for you?"

"You can't just leave willy-nilly like that! The forest is dangerous!"

"I WANT SOME ANSWERS, BRAT!"

"Can you bring a couple of crocodiles next time? I want to make a soup."

Sabo was the closest one at hand, Ace assumed, since the sound of his metal pipe unflinchingly thwacking Mogra reached his ears. After that, his brother settled, cross-legged, next to him and poked his ribs consideringly. "Who were you visiting, Ace?"

"A girl," the boy answered despairingly, currently in his pessimistic state. "I was visiting a girl. She hasn't even done anything yet and I'm pretty sure she's going to be the death of me."

"Right, right," Dadan nodded sagely. "Yeah, I can see why you'd have problems with… _a girl?!"_

x

Portgas D. Ace refused to acknowledge the snickering in the room as he brushed back his hair. As a child, he didn't actually _own_ a comb and thus was reduced to using his fingers. Fortunately his wavy locks were tangle-free and laid nicely against the wide forehead he'd been self-conscious of until adulthood. Hygiene was yet another one of those things he hadn't bothered to pick up before piracy, and the firebrand pirate silently admitted that it was strange he would adopt it now. Sabo's surprise was expected. His _snickering_ was not.

"Are you going to see that girl again?" His brother's smile was everything mischief and all the more perplexing for it as Ace couldn't figure out why he was so amused. "Lily?"

"Lucillia," Ace corrected. It was a headache remembering to use that name but he couldn't slip up and reveal anything more now. He still hasn't decided if he wanted to tell anyone about the time travel. Secrets had a tendency to slip out despite everyone's best efforts and if the World Government had been afraid of him before… Besides, while he trusted Sabo and Luffy with his life, they were children now. Innocents that didn't deserve to be burdened with such knowledge.

"Right. Lucillia," Sabo grinned. "It's a pretty name."

"If you say so." The freckled boy pushed out the wrinkles of his shirt, frowning when they didn't go away. He hated having to wear shirts again. Then something occurred to him and he turned a guilty look towards his first brother. "You don't mind, do you? That I'm spending the morning with Lu?"

"Not at all," the blonde assured, though he looked pleased at having been asked. "Dogra-san offered to teach me to cook. If you bring back those crocodiles, we can have soup for dinner."

"Sounds delicious." Did Sabo know how to cook last time around? The three had made their own place shortly after the Bluejam Incident and all they had done was stick the meat into a campfire. Was this yet another change he had caused?

' _It's not a bad one but I have to be careful about how I do this_.' Maybe he should leave Lucillia alone until Garp dropped her off here? ' _But would Lu be safe without her big brother looking after her?'_

The former pirate had perfect clarity of their childhood. It had involved massive bears, massive tigers, massive crocodiles and many instances of Luffy being swallowed alive. Ace had become an expert on choking animals by necessity. No, his little brother couldn't possibly survive without him there.

Those occasions where he threw Luffy into an open maw out of sheer annoyance were forgotten. He had done it out of love.

"Ace… Ace… Ace, STOP IGNORING ME!" Sabo huffed. "Jeez, you were out of it. What were you thinking of?"

"How much Lu needs me," Ace answered truthfully. Aaaand the blonde was back to amusement again.

"I feel like that's going to get old at some point," Sabo said cheerfully. "But not yet!"

"Right," Ace sweat dropped, then turned around and headed towards the door. He took the stairs two at a time, landing confidently at the bottom, and smiling at the bandits. They took in his appearance- neatly buttoned shirt without any stains, his best pair of shorts and the aforementioned hair- and were thoroughly shocked. Even more so, when he paused at the door and offered a wave.

"I'm off to see Lu. I'll be back at noon!" A moment later and Portgas D. Ace, formerly considered the least polite person in a house full of mountain bandits, was gone.

"It's like Ace has been possessed by a demon," Dogra whispered quietly to his friend.

"I know," Mogra replied. "Attraction is a scary, scary thing."

The freckled boy made the trip to Foosha even faster this time around. Time had dulled the quickest routes and and least dangerous paths from his mind but there was something about being here, under the wide, sun-dappled leaves of the jungle that brought it all back. There were the pink blossoms that had given Sabo hives once. The winding river bed that Luffy had fallen into- on five separate occasions- and nearly drowned in. That tall tree there had a hallowed space beneath its roots, perfect for three little boys to huddle in when they were hiding from Garp.

Ace didn't bother to go through the village this time, cutting around the forest and jogging past the lumberyard and vegetable patches, to reach the Monkey home. He lingered by the fence, taking the sight in. Lucillia was outside, a pale yellow sundress this time with a white trim and thick headband, on her knees around the flowerbeds. The wet soil was staining her dress but she didn't seem to mind as she slowly, even gently, coaxed a frog towards her. It hopped over her hand, drawing a pout from the frankly adorable little girl, but then leapt into her lap.

"Hello, there," Ace called out, trying to suppress his smile. "Making a friend?"

Wide black eyes blinked owlishly at his appearance. "Huh? The boy from yesterday? What are you doing here?"

"I'm Ace and I wanted to see you." He gestured towards the amphibian. "This is…?"

"I don't have a name for him yet but he's going to stay with Skipper and Totoro." She looked at him cautiously as though expecting censure. "I like to collect frogs."

"Okay," Ace shrugged. He didn't remember this from last time around. Was collecting frogs a girl hobby? "Can I see them?"

Lucillia eyed him for a minute, in that same strangely insightful manner her male self had mastered, before offering a wide, toothy grin. "Sure! Makino-nee and I built a little house for them at the pond. It's painted green and blue and has a bunch of lily pads in it for them to rest. You'll like it. Come on!"

One small hand snatched his and, with no apparent care for his desires or comfort, dragged him around the house and to the backyard. Ace followed along compliantly; accept everything he did and run away at the first opportunity was Luffy Survival 101. His female self at least had the courtesy to pause when he stumbled, not running headlong and dragging him behind on the damp grass. She chattered on about her frog house the entire time.

"...found Skipper first in the house. Gramps wanted to eat him- can you imagine?! There are people who do that in the Germa Kingdom! I couldn't let poor Skippy get eaten so I smuggled him out at night and let him go. I thought he would have left by now but he stayed at the pond instead and I know it's him because he has this funny spot on his head that looks a little like Mayor Woop Slap's angry face. Don't tell him I said that! Skippy not the Mayor. You can tell him. I did and he tried to hit me with his cane but he's not very fast, so I ducked under it. It went _whish_ in the air…"

' _If I closed my eyes, it would be just like having Luffy chatter my ear off about meat,'_ Ace thought, nostalgically.

When they reached the shallow basin of tepid water that could generously be called a pond, Lucy spun on her heel, put her hands on her hips and fixed him a childish glare. "Were you listening to me?"

He wasn't.

"Garp shouldn't have done that," Ace said solemnly, because that was as likely a response as any. There was something strange about the pond though… "Does that look like a fist to you?"

"Gramps punched the ground," Lucy answered cheerfully. "A squirrel tried to steal his biscuits."

He had forgotten how strong the shitty old man was. "Do you know what happened to that squirrel?"

Lucy gave him a blank look. "No."

"Do you remember what you ate for dinner that night?"

She had to think about that for a second. "Oh! We had squirrel stew that night!"

Ace waited patiently for her to realize where the squirrel in 'squirrel stew' had come from. Suffice it to say, Lucy continued to stare at him blankly until a sweat drop formed on his head. Deciding that there were some things in life he simply wasn't ready to explain, he turned to the pond. There were two frogs present, the lucky Skipper and his lazy friend, Totoro, and neither reacted overmuch when Lucy loudly announced their new friend. She put the squirmy, slick amphibian down where it promptly hopped off to get away from the pint-sized do-gooder with the overtly tight grip. Sensible frog.

"I'm going to call him Spade," Lucy announced. "That's a card name, right? Like Ace?"

"Er, yeah. It is." Where was she going with this?

"I found him on the day I made my first friend." Lucy shot him a smile so bright and happy that it was downright dazzling. "We're going to be friends now."

It was presumption built on naivete and optimism. A flash of the spoiled child Luffy had been and the selfishness he had never quite outgrown. It was a declaration, as loud and certain as the one to declare it, and a promise, for loyalty that would storm Impel Down itself to free him. Ace had slapped it away countless times before, unknowingly spurning something priceless. He knew better now. It humbled him to think that so many promises could be woven into a single word for Lucillia.

There were a lot of things Ace was tempted to say, like 'thank you', or 'I'll protect you, I swear', or even 'you can't just decide that alone' but instead he simply smiled. "Okay."

x


	3. Hunting for Answers

Chapter Three

When a brother that you love dies tragically young, particularly as a victim to senseless cruelty, than you tend to remember his better nature. In Sabo's case, it had been his sharp intellect, his gentle spirit, his thirst for freedom and so on, that Ace brooded over more than his less endearing traits, like how his feet were always cold at night. When it came to the blonde's keen curiosity though, Ace couldn't yet decide if that was something to mourn for or not.

At this point, Sabo knew him better than anyone else in his life. While the bandits had settled to his drastic personality change, occasional odd look and sly grin aside, his brother was still suspicious. The runaway noble hadn't confronted him yet, still filled with such obvious pleasure at having a safe roof over his head that Ace felt downright _guilty_ looking at him, but it would happen eventually.

"You didn't catch a lot of meat today." For a seven, near eight year old, Sabo's inquiry was almost elegant. "Crocodiles not biting?"

Ace grunted. He had dragged the other boy out to start him on basic forest survival skills. As a former resident of Grey Terminal, Sabo was a decent enough pickpocket, lockpicker and trash scrounger but didn't have experience in tracking, hunting, skinning or other wilderness necessities. The dark-haired boy planned to remedy that, starting with today's lessons on common mushrooms and herbs around Mt. Corvo. Their various states of edibility had been found by painful trial and error last time around.

The blonde had taken the opportunity to sate his curiosity on the mysterious girl his friend always disappeared to visit every morning. Ace presumed that it was due to his previous standoffish and even downright hostile behavior. His trust issues were legendary but the time traveller didn't mind answering the implicit question. He didn't have anything to hide, not with Lu.

"Stayed a little later to finish some sugar cookies Lu helped bake. She iced them herself." The artwork had been… interesting. Now he knew that being a girl didn't give anyone immediate artistic talent.

"Sugar cookies?!" Sabo looked outraged. "You didn't save any for me?"

Ace shrugged. "Ate them all. I was hungry."

"You're _always_ hungry!" The dark-haired boy shrugged again and then decided to prove his friend's claim right by grabbing some berries from their basket, rubbing them against his shirt and then throwing them into his mouth.

"'M a grow'ng boy." The blonde made a face at the muffled words and wide, blue-stained grin. "I'll save some for you next time."

"I don't believe that for a second," Sabo sulked. A few moments of grumbling under his breath later, the boy continued his interrogation. "Is that what you do at her house? Eat cookies?"

"Lu likes to run around. We play tag sometimes and hide'n'seek. There's a pond in her backyard that's filled with frogs that she likes to catch."

Ace hadn't started training her yet. For one, there was precious little they could do in the village itself without drawing unwanted attention. For another, Lu hadn't decided to be a pirate yet and wouldn't see any need in getting stronger. He had been nudging her in that direction though, talking up famous pirates like Pops, Fisher Tiger, and Red-Haired Shanks and how they got to travel the world and have incredible adventures with their nakama. Ace had been hesitant to do so at first- it felt like he was molding her sometimes- but Lu had been eager to listen. Freedom and companionship were too strong an allure for her not to beg him for stories and Ace was perhaps too willing to give them.

The world would be bereft the loss of Strawhat Luffy though, and so would, Ace believed, Lu herself. Her male self had been so _happy_ as a pirate.

"You play… hide'n'seek?" Sabo tried to wrap his mind around the boy across from him, depleting their basket of fruit as fast as the blonde could pick 'em, playing a game as childish as hide'n'seek. "She's not a street rat, is she?"

"Nope. Lives in a house with electrical wiring and everything." Mt. Corvo used a generator.

"Her parents don't care that you're playing hide'n'seek with their daughter?"

"They're not in the picture." He hadn't heard anything about her mother but Lu's father would be off trying to screw with the World Government right about now. "Her grandfather's too busy to raise her, so he hired a village woman to do it instead. Makino-san doesn't mind my friendship with Lu."

"And how old is she?"

"Lu's birthday is May 5th." Ace counted it out, "She's four months shy of five years old."

"You even know her birthday…" The dark-haired boy munched on the fruit as he eyed his brother. Sabo had a contemplative look on his face, distracted enough by his thoughts that he wasn't even trying (vainly) to swat Ace's berry-stealing hands away. "Hey, can I meet her?"

"Lu?" The future Whitebeard Pirate didn't even consider it twice. Sabo was Luffy's brother too. Of course he had a right to see him- er, her. "Yeah, sure. Do you want to come with me tomorrow?"

"Really?" The astonished look on the blonde's face turned quickly to a flattered anticipation. "Yes! I mean, I wouldn't mind going tomorrow."

' _Why is he so eager to meet Lu?_ ' A bit confused, Ace slowly ventured. "We'll be searching for transponder snails."

"For Den Den Mushi? Don't they need specialized equipment to work?"

"They do." The fact that searching for the wild snails would keep Sabo and Lu from talking overmuch was merely a side benefit. The main one was to ensure that he could be there to save either of them should they get into trouble. And reassuring Makino-nee was always a bonus. "There's a shop at High Town that sells basic phones and fax machines. We can find Baby Den Den Mushi to call each other while on the island."

"Ah." The confusion on the blonde's face cleared to the expression of one that had concluded a matter of great importance. "I see."

Ignoring the foreboding shiver that ran down his spine- this was Sabo, he had nothing to worry about from his brother- the dark-haired boy returned to lecturing about mushrooms. In the back of his mind, he slowly concocted the training regimen that they would have to put themselves through. Last time around, Ace had sailed the Grand Line as one of the strongest rookies in the seas but between the infamy the Pirate King and the First Revolutionary, they would need a _lot_ more firepower.

x

 _'When I grow up, I'm going to marry a woman just like Makino-san,'_ Sabo thought blissfully, biting into his third chocolate-chip waffle. He didn't have as many on his plate as Ace and Lucillia had jockeyed over but then, he couldn't eat enough for three grown men either. ' _She's an angel~!'_

The runaway noble boy had never truly listened to his father when he lectured about the commoner trash in the city but if he had, any agreement would be dispelled now. Makino-san was more of a lady than any noblewoman he had met. She was kind, pretty, tactful and generous enough to feed him till bursting, which were all important qualities in Sabo's book. The young woman hadn't batted an eye when Ace knocked on the door with a second scruffy boy at his side, merely ushering them inside with promises of breakfast and cheerfully calling Lucillia down to see her friends. The blonde, who had intended to run a reconnaissance mission to ensure that the little girl wasn't taking advantage of Ace, quickly found himself distracted by as much fresh orange juice as he could drink.

Now that he was comfortably sated, Sabo turned to study the mystery girl. He was an observant child, and Ace the type of person who wore his heart on his sleeve, so it was simple to note how relaxed and happy his friend was around these two strangers. Lucillia in particular drew emotions that he wasn't inclined to put down to a puppy crush. Ace was eight after all, and she just shy of five years old, but while his friend didn't act romantically, his actions were still _odd._

For one, Ace, who was prickly on a good day, was physically affectionate around her. Kicking a little girl into eating her apple slices and dragging her away from a hot stove by the scruff of her dress may not be normal signs of affection but Sabo knew they were borne from care. The wild boy was also strangely gentle when he wasn't dispensing violence upon Lucillia's person, speaking quietly and respectfully, and being attentive to her needs. Or at least letting her fill her plate up with waffles first and pushing a tall glass of milk towards her right before she choked between her eighth and ninth piece. He handled her enthusiasm and questions with a gruff patience that Sabo could have sworn he didn't have and Ace even seemed pleased to relate stories of pirates he had never heard of. And it's not that Sabo wanted to be elitist on the subject but he had spent days reading about far-off exotic islands to explore as a noble, so how could Ace, whose bandit home didn't have a single book to offer, know all this?

Compounded by all that was the look that would enter Ace's eyes sometimes, or how his face would suddenly and inexplicably fall into a wistful fondness, as he looked at Lucillia. Wealthy house, missing parents and ability to eat her own weight in waffles aside, the girl was as ordinary as they came. So why did Portgas D. Ace, the most self-contained and fury-repressed boy he knew, look at her as though she was some living miracle?

' _There's some piece of the puzzle that I'm missing,'_ Sabo concluded. Probably more than one, since Ace had changed so drastically. Even if the changes seemed to be good for him, he wanted to know. It was one part curiosity and two parts concern; his friend didn't have a lot of people that he cared for. ' _I'll find my answers… after I have strawberries.'_

Makino-san had even brought fresh cream. If he was twenty years older, Sabo would have proposed by now.

 _'Maybe that's the route Ace plans to follow in a few years?'_ His friend had stolen one of the ripe fruits off of Lucillia's plate and was now balancing back on his chair, laughing as she tried to swipe it back from him. After a few minutes, she fell back with a scowl that was more of a pout and that turned into a smile when the dark-haired boy popped it into her mouth with a flourish. _'At this rate, he's not going to find anyone else to take him.'_

Sabo didn't know much about women but he was pretty sure that hand-feeding another girl strawberries wouldn't go over well with Ace's future girlfriends.

The blonde didn't actually have a chance to talk to Lucillia, beyond a brief 'hello, it's nice to meet you' when they'd entered the house, until Ace had harried them towards the wetlands. They were relatively small tracts of land at the edges of the forest, with waist high straw-colored grass, murky blue water and enough mud that he was certain his mother would have had a conniption.

 _'Father too, actually, now that I think about it.'_ Sabo thought idly, jumping into a puddle with glee. His expensive noble's clothes got splattered up to his chest in mud but he didn't care overmuch, even if they were his only set. _'I'll wash them when I take my bath later.'_

Sabo had the privacy and protection to _take baths_ now. Admittedly it was in a man-sized trash can since they didn't have a proper bathtub at the hideout, but still. _'I wonder if Makino-san will let me have some shampoo if I ask nicely?'_

"Stop splashing me, Lu!" There was a yowl of pain as Ace painfully brought his fist against the girl's head. "Now pay attention! Transponder snails look just like normal snails except for their wider mouths and longer eye stalks. They have hair and beards sometimes too. I don't actually know how long the eyestalks are… so just shake 'em a few times. If they talk, we'll keep 'em."

"Okay, Captain!" Lucillia chirped sweetly. Slipping around him, she leaned forward and for a second, Sabo thought she was hugging the older boy from behind. Only no, because Ace jumped two feet high in the next second and the little girl had a wide, downright vindictive grin as she skipped away. She waved flakes of mud off of her hand as she did so, so there weren't any questions there.

"I'll follow her," Sabo said hurriedly, before the narrow-eyed boy could scoop up his own weapon. He kicked off his shoes and had the simultaneously strange and pleasurable feeling of cold, squishy mud squeezed between his toes. The blonde waded through the shallow water, flowing gently across the small hills of ground protruding throughout the bank, and headed towards the closest such 'island' where Lucillia had crouched. The sky blue of her dress had turned an indistinct muddle of colors now.

"Hey! Mind if I stay here with you?" Not waiting for a response, he balanced on his knees too, letting the water seep into his breeches. A flash of white teeth was the response before keen dark eyes returned to scanning the mud. "If Ace throws any mud, we can tag-team him."

The little girl nodded as though he had made a serious offer of alliance. "We can pincer him. I'll hit him from the left, and you from the right and we'll make him move back to the bird's nest. Those storks look mean."

"Uh… sure, why not? Have you ever pincered anyone before?"

"Nope! But Gramps did it with his fleet."

 _'This would be the grandfather that's too busy to raise her then. She mentioned a fleet. Is he a Marine?'_ Sabo inquired to the man's profession and received a proud nod.

"Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp," Lucillia offered freely, to the blonde's minor heart attack.

 _'Ace's dream is to be a pirate, so he goes and befriends a_ Vice-Admiral's _granddaughter?!'_ The name was unique enough to draw up newspaper articles about a distinctive ship too. _'Garp the Fist?!'_

"His ship doesn't have a dog's head carrying a bone as a mast, does it?"

"Shishishi, yep!" The dark-haired girl giggled, bright and cheerful, as the shock propelled Sabo back into the tepid water. "Eh, Ace's friend?! You're not gonna drown, are you?"

"Sabo," the blonde gurgled out, once she had dragged him back up. "Call me Sabo."

 _'And here I was thinking that Ace suddenly found a brain in that thick skull of his. But no, he's being as reckless and foolish as always._ ' The runaway noble felt somewhat reassured that his friend still needed him to function as a second survival instinct, considering Ace's own was shot to hell.

"You should call me Lucy then!" The girl offered him a dazzling smile. "We're friends now!"

"If you say so." Sabo didn't actually feel the same, though she'd been pleasant thus far, and agreed solely to gain her trust. It would make it easier to discern her true intentions. "You and Ace are very close. Have you been friends for long?"

"Eh, maybe? We had pancakes when he first visited and that was…" Lucy counted it out on her fingers. "Six days ago!"

"Only six days?!" That had been around the time Ace mysteriously gained an appreciation for hygiene and manners! "Wow, he acts like he's known you for years… uh, on another note, have you ever seen him around the village?"

"No." She looked rather puzzled by this line of questioning.

"Ever felt someone watching you from afar?"

A negative shake of the head.

"Ever looked away for a minute and lost something important?"

A negative shake of the head.

"Ever looked away for a minute and _gained_ something important?"

A negative shake of the head.

Sabo eyed her dubiously. ' _Would Lucy be smart enough to know when she was being stalked?'_

Ace would have a narrow window of opportunity. He had known the boy for a year now and they spent most of the day robbing gangs blind at Greytown Terminal. Even if he swung by Foosha on his way to Mt. Corvo, he would have had an hour or two at most, if he wanted to get some decent sleep. Factor in the need to hunt for his own food and the most opportunistic window would be…

"Where are you between the hours of nine and eleven every night?"

"Why?" Lucillia inclined her head to the side, radiating a sort of innocent suspicion. "Ne, you're not some kind of creepy pervert, are you?"

Sabo goggled at her. " _What?_! How could you say that?"

"You're asking some really strange questions," the little girl bit her lip, looking concerned. "Makino-nee said I'm not supposed to answer questions like that."

She wrinkled her nose- admittedly, a cute gesture- and then turned to look at Ace. The dark-haired boy was crawling on hands and knees between two mud piles, the bottom of his shirt upturned for a makeshift pouch of some kind. He must have felt her stare because he looked up and waved at them with a happy grin on his face. Lucillia returned the gesture and then turned to him, more relaxed now.

"Ah, I suppose it's okay! Ace wouldn't have a weird friend like that!"

A heartbeat later and Sabo had fallen back into the water again.

"Eh?! Don't die, Sabo!"

As a petite girl valiantly tried to pull him up, the blonde merely closed his eyes in resignation. He was certain that the Gods must be laughing at him right now.

x


	4. Forest of Bells

Chapter Four

A slightly plump woman with perfectly coiffed blonde curls hummed to herself as she inserted a tiny golden key into a similarly painted door. The hallway that she entered to was as gilt-edged and gaudy as one could expect, the boundaries of good aesthetics pushed by the owner's excessive need to display her wealth. Paintings hung along the wall, a series of pointed-nose individuals swathed in thick paints, and over a sinfully plush carpet. The furniture was delicate, spindly and of surprisingly sturdy white wood, the curtains honed of velvet-crushed mauve. In any direction, vases bursting with roses and lilies in full bloom choked the air with their strong scents. A chandelier of rainbow-glimmer crystals was momentarily darkened, drawing a quiet titter from the woman of incompetent help. The mood of the owner was nonetheless maintained as her heels made a distinct _click-clack_ down the hall and to a living space of orderly spread out couches. Even in the dim light, a dark figure could be seen leant against the center chair.

Mantwin Roslyn curved her painted lips in a seductive smile, as she reached for the light switch and flipped it on. Then she screamed.

Portgas D. Ace winced. And he had thought that _Luffy_ was loud.

"B-b-burglar!" Roslyn shrieked, stumbling back against the wall. "Someone save me!"

""Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you." Ace jumped up and raised his hands. "Yelling isn't going to work anyway. Everyone else's been knocked out and the walls are too thick for anyone to hear you."

That wasn't the right thing to say. The woman's shrieks only grew louder. "Cad! Thief! Murderer!"

Ace sweat dropped. ' _Well, that escalated quickly…'_

"Get out of my home, you filthy street urchin!" Roslyn looked around wildly. "Where is-?!"

"Over there." The dark-haired boy helpfully pointed to the generously-waisted noble lying prone on the floor, half-hidden behind a coffee table. There was a massive lump on his head but no other visible sign of injury. "Still wearing his marriage band even. You two aren't very good at this, are you?"

"Tomlin!" Credit given where it's due, the woman did run forward and try to swing her purse at his head. It was easy to dodge but still. "You monster!"

"Hey, _I'm_ not the one having an affair with a married man," Ace sniffed. He dodged the next swing and then snagged the purse string as inertia pulled it back around. It came out of the woman's loose grip easily, to which she fell over her lover with a tearful wail. "Stop that. You're making a fool of yourself."

"Did _that bitch_ pay you to come here?!" Roslyn sobbed. "It doesn't matter what she does! I'll still love Tomlin and he'll still love me!"

"Good for you," Ace replied distractedly. "Let's just talk this out-"

"Nothing you do will ever change my mind! I'll die for my love if I have to!" The woman passionately declared. She held her arms up as a shield in front of her bountiful chest, even as the boy rolled his eyes. Her arms cradled the adulterer's head in a most awkward angle. "I'll always love him! Always!"

Ace shifted uneasily on his feet. The woman was acting ridiculous. She had painted cheeks and perfumed curls and probably hadn't done an honest day's work in her life. She was also reminding him uncomfortably of Lu's tears dripping over his dying body in Marineford. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You'll have to kill me to get to my honeybear!"

"...Right," Ace said, instead of pointing out how easy it would be to accomplish such. "I don't want to hurt him either."

"Then what do you want?" Roslyn demanded haughtily. "My money? My jewelry? My gorgeous body?"

' _Not the first time a prisoner asked me to ravish them,_ ' Ace thought, suppressing his instinctive recoil at the memories. There were some legitimate crazies out there. ' _But I never thought I'd have to deal with it as an eight-year-old._ '

Maybe it was the height. He had always been tall for his age.

"No!" Ace winced. "No, thank you. I wanted to ask you for a library card."

Printing presses were not an uncommon technology but it was rare for many books to circulate outside of their own sea. The Red Line limited intra-sea trade and the World Government exacerbated that with their absurdly high taxes on the few ships willing to brave the Reverse Mountain currents. Knowledge was heavily censored and any books that were published on the common market needed government approval for the presses to run them. Even with those limitations though, there was plenty of valuable information to be mined at the local library. Books were a resource that Ace had left untapped for most of his life and hadn't even realized the true value of until Marco, nosy as he was, figured out that he struggled with reading and straightened him out.

The dark-haired boy had two main ways to get ahold of useful books. The first was the local library at Edge Town. Most noble kingdoms sponsored local libraries for their 'lesser' citizens but it was a hassle to get a card without an available birth certificate and proof of residence. Ace had neither and while he could steal the books easily enough, figured a card would make it easier for Sabo to parse the collection. It would also build a paper trail for his brother to use to shed his current identity.

The second was Garp's personal library. It was a little known but still rather valued fact that Monkey D. Garp was not loyal to the World Government. He believed in law, order and justice, so his loyalty belonged to the Marines, whom he saw as the main driving force behind a more peaceful world. He also, quite like his granddaughter, had trouble following rules. To that extent, his house was filled with books on all manner of subjects, including plenty of black market texts lifted from the Grand Line and ship logs from the pirates he defeated. Garp presumably kept them around to study up on his enemies; Ace planned to snoop through to find good blackmail material on his brothers.

Roslyn's blinked at him in bemusement. "...A library card?"

"I need you to claim a nephew- Saro is fine, use your last name- that lives in another kingdom. He'll be visiting you in a few months and you want to order a library card for him beforehand," Ace explained. He had scouted beforehand for the perfect 'aunt' for his brother and settled on this woman, as her hair was a similar shade of blonde. She was also a noble's mistress; powerful enough to influence the common folk but without enough exposure to recognize Sabo from his childhood. "I'll be picking it up in a day or two."

"W-w-what if I refuse?" The woman attempted a glare and then averted her eyes with a high-pitched yelp when she glared back. The child looked innocent, all floppy dark hair and a smattering of freckles, but when that smile crossed his face, it was as if a demon took his place. "Please don't hurt me!"

"I don't need to." Ace cocked his head to the side, smiling sunnily with eyes closed. The woman shuddered. "Your husband maintains this house, doesn't he? Wealthy merchant, works hard, rarely home? I wonder what he would say, or all of your neighbors, when he learns of Tomlin?"

"No one will believe a street urchin…" Roslyn whispered, eyes wide.

"Only one person needs to," Ace countered. "And even if he doesn't… the seed would be planted. More eyes would be on you. More questions. Why were you late for dinner? Who are you buying those sweets for? Do you have a lover? Are you still cheating on me?"

Ace leaned closer, the grin widening to a sharp flash of white teeth. "We don't want that, do we?"

The dark-haired boy didn't mean to terrify the woman overmuch but he didn't have time to take the gentle approach. He had bailed on early morning lessons with Sabo to take care of a few errands but promised to return in time for Makino-nee's wonderful lunch. At this rate, the merchant's wife was going to make him late and Ace couldn't allow that. He hated breaking promises to his family.

Fortunately the woman didn't have much of a spine on her, so after a few more minutes of explicit verbal threats matched with implicitly threatening smiles, Ace got her acquiescence. This capped off a most productive morning. He had started with ordering a phone system for the four transponder snails he would keep, selling the remaining two at undercut prices at the shop. Even then, the 200,000 Beli earned covered the equipment cost and bought four shirts, three pairs of shorts and a sweater for himself and Sabo each, in their preferred colors of red and blue, respectively. Afterwards, he tracked down the old man near Grey Terminal that had bought animal skins from them last time around and sold all of his available crocodile and bear stock for 17,000 Beli. This gave him roughly 82,000 Beli total to open an account at a wholesale warehouse and order all of those food supplies that he couldn't find in the forest, like buckwheat powder and beef stock, in bulk amounts.

There had only been a minor issue with his age.

"Eh, are you sure you haven't just lost your parents, kid?" The skinny teenager stared down from the cash register with insufferable condescension.

Ace bristled. "I'm twenty-one, you asshole!"

"Sure you are," the teen scoffed. "Look, take a seat and I'll use the sound speakers to call for your parents. Did you come here with your mom or your dad?"

The dark-haired boy's eyelid twitched. He took a deep breath to try and control his temper- Ace had a fair bit of practice after the _Mera Mera no Mi_ \- and then mustered a forced smile. He was then surprisingly gratified when the other cashier leaned over from his own station to slap his coworker over the head.

"Show some respect, brat," the older man huffed. He turned a bristly white mustache and kind eyes over to the boy. "You want to open an account then, sir?"

"I do," Ace relaxed. He put the thick wad of Beli on the desk and offered a sheepish quirk of his mouth as bushy eyebrows rose. "I know it's a lot of money. My Da's a businessman from Gecko Island. He wants to open another branch here and told me to set up an account at the warehouse."

"Big responsibility to give to one boy," the man noted. "At twenty-one, you're not a boy though…"

"Some asshole pirate with the Small-Small Devil Fruit attacked my village and deaged me," Ace added a scowl to great effect. "Went to a specialist to fix it but all he could say is that I've been brought back to my child body. As if I didn't know that!"

"Bad luck then!" The cashier said with sympathy. "Those damn pirates can't leave anyone alone. Heard of those nasty devil fruits before, though you're the first victim I've met."

"Probably not the last, if the Marines don't get off their lazy asses and catch these criminals."

The cashier scoffed. "Don't hold your breath. Pay your taxes all nice and regular-like, miss one month and they're at your door. When you _need_ them though…"

"Can't get anything useful done," Ace agreed. "Can you point me to the produce aisle?"

The freckled boy had ordered a generous selection of the most common food items but left them reserved at the warehouse for the next day. When he was done, Ace had gone directly to one of the crafts stores in Edge Town. He needed to get his hands on some wind chimes.

x

Lucillia swung both her legs from her perch, entangling mint green cotton fabric between her knees, as she rolled a lollipop around in her mouth. Her matching ribbon had been confiscated by Ace only moments ago when he ran out of fishing line and sewing thread to hang up bells and wind chimes on the forest branches. She didn't mind though; their little corner of the forest rung with a fragile melody as the breeze danced between the chimes. The bells glowed like miniature glass stars as daylight reflected off of them and the sound was both pleasing to the ear and unlike any she had heard before. The pattern was ever-shifting, the bells glimmered in and out of sight and many appeared swaying in the crisp afternoon air as their lines were invisible to the naked eye.

The overall picture would have been a helpless enchantment had it not been for the freckled boy hanging upside down from the tree by his knees, her ribbon in his mouth. Ace's dark grey eyes were narrowed in concentration as he tied another wind chime into place. Then, with an expertise and flexibility she had never seen before, the dark-haired boy swung backwards, flipped his body over and landed gracefully on the forest floor. He absently took the ribbon out of his mouth and tied it around his wrist, looking at the finished product in quiet satisfaction.

' _I have to bug him into teaching me that,_ ' Lucy decided. There was a low groan next to her and when she looked over, she saw the blonde boy with his face buried in his hands. "You okay, Sabo?"

"Fine, Lucy!" He looked up quickly, a nervous expression on his face. "You know, you look a lot prettier without a ribbon in your hair!"

"...Thank you," the girl answered drilly. She liked Ace's friend, she truly did. He was very kind to Makino-nee and didn't mind playing with her, but he did occasionally say the strangest things. They came out of nowhere too, like when he asked about the thickness of her window curtains at breakfast.

"Hey! Are you two going to get down here or not?" Ace called up, "Hurry up, slowpokes!"

She briefly took her lollipop out to stick down her tongue at him and then made a snap judgement about the ground. It was a lot shorter than the distance Ace easily traversed but it would still be more sensible to carefully climb down… One look confirmed that Makino-nee had moved away from the kitchen window. Lucy grinned and jumped down.

"Woohoo!" There was wind flying through her untamed locks and then all of the energy of the landing shooting up her legs. The force compelled her a couple steps further if she didn't want to topple over or buckle down, only to trip over her feet and be caught by an unsurprised Ace. She stared up at the sky for a moment, arced over the boy's thin arms, and then tumbled down when he unceremoniously dropped her to the ground. Lucy laughed. ' _Worth it.'_

She scrambled back up to her feet. "Why did you hang the bells up?"

"This," Ace gestured grandly to his ad-hoc work of household thievery and bell chimes, her green ribbon waving merrily from his wrist, "Is our training ground."

"I like it," Lucy approved. "What are we training for?"

"Observation Haki! Sabo and I will be learning this vital skill because we need it to be awesome pirates," the dark-haired boy boasted. "Lucy, you're here because Makino-nee gives us cookies to babysit you."

"Jerk!" The boy quickly sidestepped her weak punch. "I'm going to be an ever better pirate than you!"

"How are you going to do that?" Ace teased, "I'll be a Yonko. You can't do better than that."

"Can too!" Lucy's cheeks were blown out adorably in her frustration. "I'll be- uh… the King! I'll be the Pirate King!"

The freckled boy opened his mouth, eyes bright and ready to respond, when Sabo interjected before the two could fall into a brief yet violent spat.

"That's nice and all but what exactly is Observation Haki?"

"Good question," Ace praised. "Now gather around my disciples, as I explain to you the wonders of Haki. The first thing that you need to know is that there are three types of Haki in the world, though the last one, Conqueror's Haki, cannot be taught. You either have it or you don't. Only one in several million people do but they tend to be uniquely strong and bull-headed, so Lu will definitely have it."

The dark-haired girl furrowed her eyebrows. "Are you making fun of me?"

"Yes," Ace admitted freely. She was about to snap back at him before the humor fled his face, leaving mist grey eyes settled firmly on her own. "Conqueror's Haki has another name though; it's known as the King's Nature. Those who have it are known as natural leaders destined to amass power and influence. People are afraid of that, Lu. If they know that you're a Conqueror, then they'll either want to control you or bring you down, before you're powerful enough to protect yourself."

' _Bring me… down?'_ Hesitance skittered down her spine, as she nodded at him. "I won't lie to Gramps."

The thought that someone would be afraid of _her_ was mystifying. Lucy hadn't ever had that particular emotion directed at her before. It was almost too hard to believe. She trusted Ace, especially when he had such a serious look on his face, but still wanted to talk to her grandfather later. Monkey D. Garp was the most knowledgeable person she knew. Makino-nee was the smartest but Gramps had old people wisdom.

Lucy caught a flicker of dissatisfaction and worry cross the boy's face before he smiled at her. "If that makes you happy, Lu."

"What does Conqueror's Haki do, that people are so afraid of it?" Sabo wanted to know.

Ace's brief explanation, that they willed their enemies into unconsciousness was met with patent bewilderment by the two children. Sabo looked at Lucy. Lucy looked at Sabo. At that moment, they were in complete agreement. Their friend was crazy.

Luckily for them, Ace merely glared at the action, before moving onto Observation Haki. This ability sounded just as enthralling and impossible as the last. Diffusing their willpower outside of their bodies to sense the presence, strength and even emotions of others. Skilled enough users had a limited form of precognition, able to discern and deflect the attacks of their enemies before the strikes even began. They would activate this skill by blindfolding themselves and running through the training grounds. Observation Haki would be needed to move around all of the trees, bushes and branches without disrupting the melody once.

' _It's almost too grand to be true,'_ Lucy mused, over this remarkable mystery power. Not that she hadn't seen things that beggared belief before. ' _Gramps can punt boulders over the forest canopy.'_

"When we were in Grey Terminal…" Sabo's sky blue eyes were darkened in thought. "You hit those men behind me."

Ace quirked his mouth to the side. "Observation Haki."

"Huh." Sabo stared at Ace silently for a minute, until even Lucy was fidgeting in discomfort. She wanted to open her mouth and break the silence but an instinct held her back. "How did we meet?"

"I was losing a battle with a gang when you jumped in and helped me fight the stragglers off," the dark-haired boy answered. "You wanted us to split the beli since we worked together but I told you to buzz off, since I didn't need your help in the first place. You took offense to that and pickpocketed all the money from me. When I tracked you down later, _you_ were fighting gang members and I helped beat them. We've been partners since."

"Right." Sabo took off his bowler hat and twisted it between his hands. "You changed, Ace."

"I've gotten stronger," the freckled boy acknowledged. "And I know things that I didn't before but I'm still your friend, Sabo."

"I don't doubt that." Sky blue orbs looked at her worriedly, before the encouraging smile on Ace's face had him barrel forward. "How…?"

"I can't explain it yet but I promise I will, one day," Ace said earnestly, looking between both of them. "Can you still trust me?"

' _Explain what?'_ Luminous ink-toned eyes blinked curiously and then the question was dismissed by a radiant smile. "Ace is my friend. I trust him."

The freckled boy's cheeks flushed a bright pink as he grinned back at her. He turned to the blonde worriedly but Sabo had pulled his hat back on.

"...Yeah, me too." Sabo looked towards the obstacle course. "Let's learn Observation Haki then."

x


	5. Working to the Future

Chapter Five

There was a graceful melody of chiming bells in the forest.

CLANG! CRASH! BANG!

"$%6& bells!" Came a high-pitched shriek shortly afterwards, before Lucy tripped over a pair of cotton candy blue heels that Ace may or may not have tossed in front of her path. "ACE!"

"Keep trying, Lu! You're doing much better!" The dark-haired boy added an equally cheesy and insincere thumb's up to that comment, that had the girl peek through her blindfold to flip him off. Considering she had been a (relatively) well-behaved and polite child in the month before they'd met, Ace counted this as progress to her future pirate career. "No cheating! You either get through with your eyes closed or we practice Armament training!"

Lucillia's tanned skin took on a slightly greenish undertone as she hurriedly returned her blindfold to its place and resumed trudging through their obstacle course. A soft smile crossed Ace's face as he watched the little girl stumble and curse her way through. It was heartwarming to see her like this; young and innocent, naive and so very much _alive_. There had been a terrifying moment last night when he'd woken up from his most recent nightmare- Ace throwing his body in front of Akainu's fist _too late._

' _Hopefully she won't get bored enough for me to break out the tree branch.'_ It felt cathartic to hit Lucy over and over again with a stick- brought back fond memories of their first childhood really- but his temper was running a thin stream underneath his skin now. Ace didn't have the _Mera Mera no Mi_ anymore. He couldn't just light a few things on fire and have his tension drain out as his surroundings burned to ashes, so he lacked an easy outlet for his ever-present simmering fury. ' _Dogra will have his crocodile soup tonight then._ '

Taking a moment to glance at Sabo, still immersed in the book on navigation he'd borrowed from the local library, Ace stalked out to hunt a few poor creatures. Idly he gave some consideration to buying a lighter on his next trip out to the Goa Kingdom. Or better yet, stealing one. He'd forgotten how fun petty theft was since he became a big-name pirate. At that point, it was kind of pathetic stealing minor cantrips unless you were raiding a Marine base or somesuch.

Ace was proud of how far his disciples- both of whom argued against the title- had come. Neither had unlocked their Haki, of course, and wouldn't by a longshot, no matter the near three-digit hours of practice they'd put into it so far. Ace had them switch out with Observation and Armament, even joining the exercises himself. There was a yellowing bruise to his arm where Lucy had enthusiastically tried her best to break his bones. He had managed to turn the skin dark grey briefly afterwards and the little girl had been so shocked by the accomplishment- Sabo too! How could his beloved little siblings not trust his word on Haki?- that she didn't even try to run when he retaliated. A few minutes of breathless laughter from tickling later and she'd demanded to see it again. Sadly, Ace had been unable to replicate the attempt.

Even without unlocking Haki though, Ace was certain there were minimal gains to strength, speed, dexterity and bodily conditioning. Lucy had made great strides in stamina too; before she could only gasp out curses every few minutes between the course, now there was a bubbly stream of them as she ran the bells. Sabo hadn't made as much progress physically, preferring to spend his afternoons devouring one book after another. It reminded Ace why he had always considered Sabo to have a few screws loose in their childhood. He read books, too, especially when he needed them but the blonde genuinely _liked_ to learn.

On the bright side, medicine was one topic his brother recently picked up and he had made the basic bruise ointment that was lathered on Ace's arm that day. The future Whitebeard pirate had made sure to memorize the formula and then nagged Lucy into doing the same. She had been resistant at first but a 'super cool pirate story with dinosaurs and explosions' won her over eventually. Ace had lied out of his ass for that one but hey, it was the Grand Line! It _could_ have happened.

Far from East Blue, an individual to one day be known as Mr. 5 shuddered as an ominous chill rolled down his spine.

As he brutally smashed a crocodile's brain to mush, Ace tried to focus on his pride for their progress and not the frustration also simmering underneath. Sabo and Lucy were alive and he wouldn't trade that for the world. But Akainu was also alive, and so was that goddamn traitor, Blackbeard. Every moment that they drew breath felt like a burden of failure, as though he would always be looking over his shoulders in fear of them. Not for himself- Ace had experienced death once and while he didn't look forward to it, he could accept it again- but a little girl that had the curious affinity of jumping off of any high surface she could find and a blonde boy that devoured books by the shelf-full.

He was so weak. They were so weak. Ace need to do more- _they didn't even have a body to bury for Sabo, Luffy's rubbery skin would forever bear that X-mark-_ but every time he reminded himself of the years they had, another little voice whispered that it wasn't enough. What were the few tricks he could offer compared to all of the powers in the world out to destroy the family he'd made?

' _What am I, compared to Akainu, to Big Mom, to Sengoku, to Kaido?'_

The dark-haired boy's rage spiked further. It was a joke amongst his brothers that the _Mera Mera no Mi_ just made him a literal hothead. A joke borne of the truth that few had seen past his friendly and amiable demeanor; that Ace had spent so much of his life with _hate_ , that he couldn't suppress it, not entirely, even when he'd been offered love. That even as the happiest man in the world, there would always be that dark side of him ready to lash out and burn the world to the ground, if only to make everyone see that he existed, he _mattered_.

' _My name is Portgas D. Ace. I'm the older brother of Monkey D. Luffy and Sabo and the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. I have a family and a home. I'm alive and everyone I love is alive too.'_

One or another iteration of this was repeated as Ace gathered the dead corpses around himself, listing off tasks in his head with the bullet point accuracy of a Marine marksman. First aid, navigation, carpentry, cooking, bleeding out poisons, haggling for purchases… they needn't be masters of anything, there were crew members for that, but they needed to know a bit of it all. Sabo needed to be kept safe. Lucy needed to be prepared. And Ace needed…

The snail phone attached to his belt rung a familiar _puruu-puruu-puruu._

In an awkward gesture, the boy picked it out and brought it to his face. The normally lime green color of the snail had turn a bright, fiery red with white whirlpools spinning round and round on the shell. The eyes had quite possibly doubled in size, turning a doleful inky tone, and the voice that came out had the high chirp of the truly young.

"Ace! Ace! Ace!" He wasn't there but he could well imagine Lucy jumping up and down on her feet now. "I got to the end, Ace! I finished the obstacle course!"

A streak of vibrant blue ran through the shell and the whirlpools widened, a few turning into etched gusts of wind. "And she only pulled down two bells too- Ow!"

There was a stomping sound and then a scowl on the snail. "Be quiet, Sabo! I put the bell back up! Ace didn't need to know!"

"Too late," the boy in question singsonged, a deliciously evil grin present. "You should have lied, Lu… this means an extra half-hour of Armament today."

"Dammit!"

"A full hour," Ace added. At the mutinous look on the snail, he teased. "Want to push it further?"

"...Sabo and I are eating all of the snickerdoodles Makino-nee made for lunch. So there!"

The snail clamped shut and Ace felt his tension drain away in the sudden silence of the forest. This was exactly what he needed.

x

No matter how many surprises Ace had thrown at them in the last five months, Dadan was still shocked when she saw two little boys troop past with planks of wood and paint buckets in their hand. Not by the fact that Ace could build things- the boy had proved shockingly proficient at fixing up odds and ends of their hideout- but that he was leaving the house. This was naturally something the Bandit Boss was opposed to, as Ace was a source of free meat and labor for them. If she would also miss him a bit when he left, well, that was no one's business but her own.

"Oi! Where do you think you're going with that, brats?!" Stomping over to the boys, she put herself smartly in front of them as an immovable brick wall, her mighty fists crossed. "If you're thinking about fixing the broken door, well, you're heading the wrong way!"

"Che, fix it yourself, you old hag!" Ace shouted back, still holding half a dozen thin planks on his left shoulder. He had a bucket of paint with brushes balanced on them in his right. The blonde had a lighter load, a full (and new, she noticed, where were they getting the beli for this?) toolbox, more paint and a pickaxe over his shoulders. "Sabo and I've got work to do."

"What work?" Dadan asked suspiciously. "It's not anything that's going to bring the authorities down on us, is it?"

The blonde boy snorted. "Nah, we're much better at being bandits than you guys. They still haven't caught _us_."

Ace nodded in agreement, ignoring his foster mother's fierce denials. "It takes too much time to travel from here to Grey Terminal to Foosha and back every day. We're building a fort closer to the village and moving there."

' _He wants to move closer to Foosha?'_ Dadan narrowed her eyes. "This isn't to visit that girl of yours, is it?"

The curly-haired mountain bandit still hadn't _met_ the little village girl that had such an influence on Ace nowadays- and she pushed away the brief flare of dissatisfaction that Ace might be too ashamed of them to introduce her- but she remembered a name from earlier. Lana? Lora? Lily? Something like that. Dadan didn't mind Lily's effect most of the time. Ace wasn't just more well-mannered these days. He was less high-strung and happier too, especially after making those daily visits, but this was a line too far.

"Absolutely not!" Dadan barked out. "You can't live too close to the village, Ace! You know the dangers out there."

"What dangers?" Sabo inquired quizzically.

"My dad was Gol D. Roger, the Pirate King. Before he died, he asked his Marine rival, Garp the Fist, to hide me from the world before his enemies could find and kill me. That's why I'm being raised with mountain bandits," Ace answered succinctly, making the blonde boy nearly keel over from surprise and Dadan gape soundlessly at his sheer lack of concern over the revelation. "Oh, and i's a secret, so you shouldn't tell anyone, Sabo."

"IF IT'S A SECRET, THEN WHY DID YOU TELL ME/HIM?!" Dadan and Sabo yelled with surprisingly shared indignity. The two shared a once-in-a-life glance before the orange-haired woman continued. "DO YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS THAT SECRET IS, ACE?!"

There was a strange, bitter smile on Ace's face at those words. "Yes, I do. And I'd say it all over again, because I know I can trust you two with my life."

That shocked his listeners into silence once again. Sabo was blushing furiously as he beamed at the words, while Dadan turned away, both to sniffle audibly and to avoid hitting Ace for his recklessness.

"If you know how dangerous it is, then you should know better than to live near the village!"

"You may have misunderstood how close it'll be," Ace corrected, with an easy grin. "It's still too deep into the forest for any villagers to stumble across. Not that they'd need to, since they see me every day when we visit Lu."

"I didn't think about that," Dadan muttered, blanching. "Maybe it would be better if-"

" _No."_ That single word could shatter steel and crush mountains and it was spoken by a boy of not more than eight years. Despite his youth, the childish fat on his cheeks and the pitch of his voice, it was as if the sky grew darker briefly, a strength of will unfamiliar to Dadan asserting itself in the world. "I need to visit Lu."

Not _I want_ or _I will_. Dadan wanted to say that he didn't _need_ to do anything but felt certain that in this one occasion, the dark-haired boy had been perfectly honest. He _needed_ to visit this girl.

"Hmnp, she must be something," Dadan muttered, almost unconsciously under her breath.

Ace shot her a wide, pointy-toothed grin. "Absolutely."

Next to him, Sabo was nodding with less vehemence. "She may be a little kid _and a girl_ but she isn't that bad for- bytheJollyRogerAce,whatthefuckdidyoudo?!"

Well, _that_ at least, made sense in Dadan's world. " _What did you do, Ace?"_

The dark-haired boy had the temerity to throw a look of surprise their way as though he had no idea what they were talking about. Worse, it was a good look. "I didn't do anything!"

The toolbox clanged when it was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, the paint bucket and pickaxe following it. Ace's own supplies fell down too, when the blonde grabbed the neckline of his shirt and began to shake him back and forth. "She's the granddaughter of Garp the Fist, you idiot!"

"So?" Ace's eyes swung around, as he dizzily tried to regain his bearings. "The shitty old man already knows about me. He's the one that left me here, remember?"

"Still! He's not going to be happy that the Son of the Pirate King is filling Lucillia's head with stories of pirates!" Sabo wailed. "Why do you have to be so reckless, Ace?!"

' _Lucillia! That's her name!'_ Dadan snapped her fingers, pleased at finding it out. Then the rest of the words reached her ear, and she choked as her throat constricted. ' _Garp's granddaughter?!'_

She wanted to pick Ace up and shake him back and forth too. How could he be such an idiot?!

The dark-haired boy laughed. "It's fine, Sabo! The old man'll drop Lu off with us, soon enough. That's why we're building the fort! There's not enough room in the bandit house for all of us."

' _I'LL HAVE TO RAISE GARP'S GRANDDAUGHTER?_ ' Dadan started foaming at the mouth.

"Garp the Fist won't let his granddaughter live with bandits either!"

"You'd be surprised!" Ace threw back, still cheerful. "Lu's a girl, so she'll need her own room. You want one too or would you rather we share?"

"WHY ARE YOU SO BLASE ABOUT THIS?!"

"First, you obviously spent too much time with that thesaurus. Second, everything will be fine, Sabo. I have a plan!"

And that was it for Dadan. With one dramatic swoon, the mountain of a bandit toppled backwards and created small tremors in the ground, as she crashed down to the forest floor. This distracted the two arguing boys, one of whom exclaimed in worry over her prone form. The other quickly picked up his supplies and stepped smartly over his foster mother.

"Shouldn't we get her medical attention, Ace?" Sabo pulled out the white neckerchief he wore and tried to fan the orange-curled woman's face.

"Eh, she'll be fine." Was the indifferent reply. "Let's try and build the floors today. I want to know how big the rooms are before we go shopping for futons."

Eyes still closed, Dadan wilted. ' _Ace is so heartless…'_

x

"Thank you for showing us this, Makino-san," Ace said politely, a thin metal held securely in his hands. Despite his youth, they were calloused and littered with little white scars. "I appreciate it."

"I do too!" Was Sabo's contribution as he looked adoringly at the green-haired woman. "It was very kind of you, Makino-san!"

The woman laughed lightly, flashing a kind smile over to them. "It was my pleasure! It's not often I find any boys willing to help with the winter rush. You're a dab hand with a sewing needle, Ace."

"I'm a man of many talents," was his suave reply. Oddly enough, sewing was one of the basic skills that all pirates eventually acquired, lest they wanted to run into battle starkers. It's not as though there were many tailors setting up shop in the middle of the ocean and rips and tears became part of daily pirate life. With the ratio of male to female pirates skewed depressingly into a sausage fest, 30 to 1, only an idiot would deride the skill as too 'girly' for them to learn. "Do you do this every winter?"

"For the last four years," Makino answered. Ace raised his eyebrows, sincerely impressed. He didn't know if this was one of the butterfly effects of his time travel or something that he just hadn't noticed before, but it was a truly kind thing for Makino to do. Every autumn, the young woman gathered the excess wool spun from the local sheep that hadn't been dyed and sold to the Goa Kingdom, and made quilts from them for the elderly residents. Lucy had been roped into helping since last year and she wasn't that bad at it, working swiftly and with pure concentration, as she arranged a few scraps of yellow fabric into a smiley face for Mayor Woop Slap.

They were sitting on the floor of the Monkey residence in a sewing circle, all of the furniture pushed off to the side and sunlight streaming in through the windows. The room was suffused in light and warmth and the tantalizing scent of the cookies Makino had made only that morning, let out to cool a bit before their break. It was a perfect time for Sabo to be introduced to an important life skill, while also preparing quilts, curtains (they were running low on lumber and decided on curtains instead of actual wooden doors for the fort's rooms) and Ace's masterpiece.

"How _did_ you get leather in such an obnoxious shade of orange?"

"I stole it like a normal person, duh. And seriously, you read that thesaurus too much!" Ace shot back.

"Stealing, Ace?" A miniscule frown crossed Makino's face as she looked at him.

Ace shrugged, still working on trying to criss-cross the lower layers into his hat's brim. "Only from the noble-sponsored stores, I swear."

"Which noble's store?" Sabo's voice was just a little too high for it to be of casual interest.

In response, Ace smirked. "Dunno. It had a yellow flower sign on the window."

The blonde perked up and then smiled viciously. "I know those ones. You should steal from them whenever you can, Ace."

"No problem." Ace took out the largish painted buttons and felt around for his hot glue gun. "I was thinking that tomorrow we could all go down to the wharf and visit the fishermen? There are some questions I had about reading the weather…"

The dark-haired boy was cut off when the sound of rapid footsteps crossed the house and then there was a sharp knocking sound at the door. Makino hurriedly stood up to open the door, Ace leaning back, unconcerned as Mayor Woop Slap rushed into the foyer. There was one wide-eyed glance of uncertainty towards him- even in the months he'd been visiting, the Mayor still hadn't gotten used to Ace's presence while all but declaring Sabo the pinnacle of childkind- before he shouted out.

"Pirates are here!"

x


	6. Akagami Shanks

Chapter Six

Akagami Shanks was having a heart attack.

At least he was pretty sure that the tsunami of memories he was awash in was triggering a forceful squeeze within his chest that was akin to one because _Shanks was having a heart attack._ He wondered if this was how Captain Roger had felt when he jumped overboard during the Battle of Edd to save Buggy? If so, he had a sudden and acute sympathy for his former captain followed by a strong desire to throttle him because he would not have put it past the man to get his revenge from beyond the grave. That his revenge was a pint-sized bundle of messy hair and burned freckles that was completely ignoring him in favor of chasing an even smaller child around was irrelevant. Gol D. Roger's child had _survived_.

By all accounts he may have even thrived, looking tall and healthy for his age and with a blonde in a blue top hat and a little girl with raven locks in tow. It was the latter that had reached them first, pinwheeling out her arms to try and gain her balance, before Roger's son ran into her pitching them both forward. Considering that fists were flying and she was only so tall…

"Omph," Shanks kept himself from more than a wheeze as he got inadvertently hit where no man should ever be so. "God _damn_ it, brats."

The little girl scampered back a bit before being forcefully and protectively shoved behind Roger's brat. Slate greys so familiar to one lady he once knew, a graceful woman often full of laughter where this was wary, eyed him up and down in clear mistrust. There was a tint there of unfamiliar emotion that Shanks was unable to recognize but almost seemed expectant to him. The blonde managed to reach up to them by now and had one hand firmly secured around a metal pipe as he stood behind Roger's brat. Huh, he intended to back up his friend. That was sort-of cute.

The raven head poked its away around it's protector's shoulder and a sunny smile was offered. "Hi! I'm Monkey D. Lucillia but you can call me Lucy!"

"Akagami Shanks." Yet even more surprises then. He had seen that smile on two faces before, both men far more formidable than this slip of a girl, but he'd not expected Roger's son to be protecting Garp's… granddaughter? Of course, now that he recalled it, Garp was supposed to hail from a backwards island in the middle of East Blue and he likely had a hand in his former rival's son's existence. Judging from how much effort the government had put into ending Roger's line- all of those women dead, innocent and carrying children and guilty solely of having briefly met the man- they'd not be aware of this. Otherwise Roger's son wouldn't have lived this long, not even for a nefarious plot of their own design. "Who're your friends?"

"Ace and Sabo," was the prompt answer, followed by a tiny wail as the older, dark-haired boy hit her over the head. "Why Ace?"

 _Ace_. He had a name now. He was looking down at Gol D. Ace.

"You can't just give your name out to pirates, idiot," Ace scolded her. "What if they were enemies of the old man?"

"Poppy has enemies?" This question was asked with such innocent confusion, complete with owlish eyes and a head tilt offered, that Shanks immediately believed in its sincerity.

"He's a Marine Vice Admiral, of course, he has enemies!" The blonde was flailing his hands in the background now, trying to get Ace to shut up but naturally, Roger's son kept going on. "He fought a lot of pirates, beat them up and threw them into jail. How else did you think he got that position?"

"Poppy's really nice, so maybe they gave him titles because they liked him?"

"That's… not entirely against the Marine habit of corruption and nepotism, fine, but in this case, the old geezer *earned* his moniker of badassery," Ace said with begrudging respect. "They don't call him the Hero for nothing."

"Well, heroes only beat up bad guys and these pirates are good, right?" Lucillia peered up at him now, all guileless ink-toned eyes and bright, hopeful smiles. "You won't hurt anyone, will you, Mr. Shanks?"

"Nope, the plan here's just to restock and find a decent watering hole," Shanks confirmed, amused. "And drop the title, little miss, I'm a respectable pirate and don't want any of that nonsense."

"Then you have to call me Lucy. I'm going to be a pirate too!" Then, ignoring her friend's complaints, she unerringly reached for Shanks' hand, the much smaller, much softer one almost buried in his calloused palms as she dragged him towards the mainland.

From where Shanks looked back, the rest of the crew was still patiently waiting for Beckman to finish negotiating with the mayor. Due to his relaxed personality, non-confrontational manner and often termed boyish looks, few outside of the Grand Line knew him to be the Captain of the Red-Haired Pirates (Ha! And Mihawk thought he wouldn't be shameless enough to name his crew after his most defining feature). The villagers didn't even look twice as Garp's granddaughter self-importantly led him through the crowd and up the hilly pass towards the village. A few members of his crew did and Shanks just offered nonchalant waves to the rest. Admittedly it wasn't uncommon for a pretty lady to drag him away in a few of the towns they'd docked in but none were quite as adorable or demanding as Monkey D. Lucy. She'd definitely inherited her grandfather's indifference to other people's desires.

Shanks took the opportunity here to study where Ace had lived for most of his life as well as Ace himself. The boys had fallen back to whisper furiously amongst themselves and since it seemed to be an elaborate scheme to extract and hide away their youngest friend (complete with treats to keep her willingly in the hiding spot, amusingly enough), the red-haired pirate let them. Instead he noted other details. A few were more positive than others, such as how Ace seemed to know the route being taken but the few villagers remaining in the town continued to give him shifty looks. Or maybe that was to Shanks? It seemed a quiet, sleepy town; nothing like the bustling cities that Roger and Rouge had grown up in but Ace was _alive_ , so Garp must have done something right.

He wondered if Rayleigh knew about this or Buggy. Shanks thought not. The latter at least would have made this an annual visit with his money-laundering operation, that infamous Buggy circus, to keep an eye on Rouge's only son. The woman had gifted him with his very first personal set of knives.

It wasn't a bad little set-up here though. Shanks liked Lucillia. He thought anyone would with that happily burbling chatter and those darkly gleaming eyes that peered up hopefully for stories. They were cute but a little too well-done to be natural. In fact…

Shanks lowered his voice to a stage-whisper. "You don't practice those on your friend, do you?"

"I do," was the beaming response.

"And how often does it work?"

"All the time!" A third voice, this one belonging to the blonde piped up now and ended with a fist crashed into his head by a blushing Ace.

Shanks grinned. _Not a bad little set-up at all._

x

Ace was ambivalent about the arrival of Akagami Shanks. He didn't have any particularly strong feelings about the man; even when they had exchanged sake as pirates, Ace had done it in gratitude for the man saving his little brother's life. As so, the dark-haired boy had always associated the red-haired pirate as _Lu's_ pirate, the larger-than-life, party-wild Yonko that inspired his brother to toss his hat in the ring to be Pirate King. Luffy had considered him just one step away from the crown, the final victory to be claimed before he could ascend the ocean throne. In that respect, Ace was a hell of a lot impressed by the man.

In other ways, not so much.

Shanks was supposed to be _Lu's pirate_. He was supposed to focus his attention entirely on the bright-eyed girl currently wearing him down for tall tales of the seas. While he was doing so, the man also occasionally shifted his attention to Ace with a warm nostalgia in his eyes. The freckled boy hated that look. It always meant someone was thinking back to his no-good father and putting expectations on _him_ because of it. Since he wasn't dead yet, Ace assumed their were positive memories but even then, fuck Gol D. Ace, fuck his legacy and fuck every single damn person that thought Ace's entire life could be summed up as _Son of the Pirate King_.

He wasn't even aware that he was squeezing the wooden mug in his hand with such force as to crack it into splinters before Lu- and he kept his eyes on her, after Akainu, Ace _always_ kept his eyes on her- scooted off her seat and clambered onto his lap. Selfish girl that she was, Lucillia completely ignored the inconvenience of having to drop his mug, still half-full with watered down ale, onto the table, to wrap his arms around her. Ace buried his face into messy locks and breathed in the scent of strawberry shampoo, fresh air and _Luffy_.

"Shanks is telling us about his trip to an island shaped like a margarita!" Lucy announced, smiling so widely at him that it was a wonder her cheeks didn't get stuck that way. "Listen!"

"Bossy," Ace muttered, even as he followed her instructions. He sent a reassuring smile to worried-looking Sabo, ignored Shanks or the glancing Red-Haired pirates entirely and awaited storytime. Much to his personal regret, it wasn't even half bad.

The trio ended up spending most of the four days that the Red-Haired pirates spent in Foosha doing the same. Lucy couldn't get enough of Shanks' pirate stories and after Ace learned to instinctively burn away his jealousy for her not relying on _him_ as master storyteller anymore, he came to enjoy it as well. Sabo had even taken a book with him to jot down everything they said, making Shanks laugh and his second-in-command, Beckman, claim that they had a second ship log stored in a safe place then for if their own was ever ruined. Shanks never quite stopped eyeing him differently then the others but he'd become enthralled by Lu and Sabo quickly enough, so Ace forgave him that fault. In the end of it all, the Red-Haired pirates prepared to sail off, dropping out of their life as swiftly as they'd entered it and with as little fanfare and Ace became… concerned.

' _Where's the Gomu Gomu no Mi?_ _Where's the famous strawhat and the promise to be the Pirate King?'_

Worry stirred in his gut. In his selfish desire to see his little sibling again, had Ace screwed the future up irreversibly? Guilt and concern compelled him to, for there could be no other reason, ask his question. "You're coming back, right?"

Shanks looked surprised by the question before a warm smile blossomed across his face. "Of course, I am, Freckles." Ace masterfully did not twitch at the newfound nickname. "We stayed for a day longer than planned but this was a great watering hole and we're still sticking around in East Blue for the year, so it's not the end! I still have more stories for you, Anchor and the Blue Owl over there!"

"Good." The time traveler looked at him warningly. "Lu will be upset if you stay away too long, so _don't_."

Instead of being intimidated, Ace received a bright grin, a hair ruffle and a squeezed cheek for his troubles and immediately took out his pipe. Shanks' eyes glittered and his laugh burst out loud and free as the man easily dodged each attack and then ran for the pier. Ace gave chase, of course, but it wasn't long before he was leaping into the ship and waving an exuberant goodbye to them all.

Lucy waved back with just as much enthusiasm. "Bye, Shanks! I'll miss you so much! Be safe and come back here soon!"

' _No wonder this is the man Lu took for a mentor. They're_ equally _awful.'_

Keeping true to his promise, Shanks returned a fortnight later for a second visit and a third and a fourth. He continued offering a litany of stories to the children, all the while batting his eyelashes for more beer from a flustered and laughing Makino and dodging Sabo's retaliatory pranks for 'stealing his woman'. He never spoke about his knowledge of Ace's parentage directly, to which the dark-haired boy was _mildly_ relieved. Sabo already knew and Lu wouldn't care but however kind Makino-nee may be, he didn't want the green-haired woman to learn of this yet.

Ace had thought he'd kept the time stream moving as it should be when Shanks started mocked Lu's dreams and dodging his attempts at payback and the girl had stumbled into the _Gomu Gomu no Mi_. While he _had_ warned her against devil fruits this time around, it seemed that either Lu's memory failed her- a perfectly reasonable argument- or it was just destiny for the troublesome girl to become a rubber human. Sabo has been fascinated by it and whisked away Lucy at once for experimentation with electrical sockets that Ace _probably_ should've stopped. Eh, they'd done stupider things before. Shanks took this opportunity to draw him outside. Or pick him up by the scruff of his shirt, declare that they were both in need of fresh air and ignore Ace's attempts to hit him to get back down.

"So…" Shanks said as he dropped him unceremoniously down on the floor. "You exist."

Landing with catlike grace, Ace shot a glare at the man. "Yeah, no shit, genius."

"I'm going about this the wrong way," the redhead acknowledged, sitting down and letting Ace have a few inches of height advantage over himself. Ace didn't bother to let it reassure him. This was a freaking _Yonko_. If not now, then in a handful of years certainly and Ace hadn't been able to stand toe-to-toe against his Pops even before he'd died. "Do you know who your parents are?"

As the man already knew, Ace bit out, as curt as he could. "Portgas D. Rouge."

"And your father?"

"I don't have a father."

"Everyone has a father," Shanks answered firmly. His expression gentled. "Not everyone wants to claim them perhaps but there's never been a child I've known that's been born without."

"It's a wide, wide world out there," Ace shrugged. "Just because you haven't seen a child with only a mother doesn't mean it can't be done."

Shanks chuckled. "I suppose you're right but if you ever do find out how, tell me. I'd be able to dangle it in front of Big Mom for _years_."

Ace bit his lip before he could add his own amusement to the air. He shouldn't be aware of any knowledge of the Grand Line after all. "Are we done here?"

"Not yet." The famous pirate plucked his hat off of his head and turned it around between his hands. "I wasn't always a captain on my own ship. Once I sailed under another flag beside your mother… and your father as well. We were a pretty well-known bunch. Ever heard of the Roger Pirates?"

Ace warily nodded. "I don't want anything to do with my father's legacy or One Piece."

"No," Shanks agreed, his eyes distant. "Roger's throne is for another to claim and I think it might just be Anchor in there that claims the final prize. For you…" The hat spun around balanced precariously on one finger. "Your father entrusted this to me when I was still a cabin boy serving under his command. It's not as famous or valuable as other Pirate King artifacts but I'd never seen the Captain without it and I think he'd be proud if you were the next one to wear it. I know you don't want to live under his shadow but this hat's a subtle enough acknowledgment and I'd like you to think about keeping it."

Ace thought about it. "No, thanks. A crown belongs to a future king and that's just not me."

"Fair enough." He thought there might just be a glimmer of respect in the red-haired pirate's eyes now. "If you don't want to be a king, what will you be?"

"Easy. I'm the King's Guardian."

x


End file.
